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The titans would have been much better balance if the reserves rules for the no LoW player changed to apoc style where the reserved units can come in automatically turn 1.

The real problem is that the revenant is better than 4 waveserpents of durability with firepower that makes 8 wraithknights pale in comparison. Pricing wise it should be worth more than 4 wraithknights at the very least and yet it is 3.75 WK in price. The ability to remove elite units and vehicles from play at will makes a huge number of dexs and builds invalidated. It isn't a matter of adding titan killers because the damage one of these can do in a single turn makes killing it turn 2 probably not soon enough. Much of this would be fixed if the reserves rules were like those in 5ed or Apoc or D weapons were not so extreme in their effects but those are wishlistings.

Can they be dealt with? Yes

Do they invalidate 75% of the games variety in builds? Yes.

Can they be great fun if done right? Yes.

BTW the reason the escalaction warlord traits are not mentioned is CD really need fatey's warlord trait to work. This game could have been much better if Jy2 would have seized or gotten Bel'K in turn 2 but even then the titan basically invalidated every other unit on the field. It was literally a single model doing everything in this game. The fact that that existed in any degree has made people angry for over a year (helldrakes vs bike armies) and now that exists for everything but fliers.

jathomas2013 wrote:
The changes to super heavies(being affected by psy powers and being able to be locked in combat) means that IMO they aren't that harsh.

And before everyone yells "You obviously haven't played against sD before..." I have. I have played against an Emperor Titan, my brother has a Shadowsword that he uses in every Apoc game, and I have a Revanent. I am well aware of their power. I think this batrep cannot be used for a good telling of whether or not the new Escalation is crazy. There were too many mistakes made in that game, and you were playing against someone who hadn't faced the new sD before.

I am not mad at you guys for the mistakes, thanks for the report and trying to educate us on the new 6th edition. But would you guys be able to do another batrep where spamadam doesn't misuse the formations? I think the superheavies can be beat, as proven by the fact that jim won the battle. And that was with the Tau being there illegally. It is n't writing over a problem with a bigger problem imo, all you need to do is throw something flying on the board, focus on the mission, and you can likely win.

I understand that certain armies are at a disadvantage here, that's always been the case(poor sisters of battle have never won a GT in 40k history right?). But I think if the rules were played right super heavies are fine. How you guys feel about super heavies is how I feel about screamer/seer star. Both of those are silly combos, yet no GT has banned them. Banning super heavies seems hypocritical. All that is needed, if you feel that sD is OP, is to make some changes to how sD functions, punishing players for taking a certain number of sD(automatic +1VP for each 2 sD weapons your opponent has for instance). And i think some are forgetting that the Revenent costs a staggering 900(or is it 950? I always forget). If a 900-950 pt model can't kill a 180 pt model or two(the soul grinders) in a turn then it is absolute crap.


And lastly, for those who think that sD is unreasonably powerful: Read the fluff. It is described as being powerful enough to 1-shot a titan. Do you really think that something that can kill a TITAN in a single turn would get stopped by your IRON HALO that your captain has?! C'mon guys, think a lil bit here!

Anywho, that's my rant. I appreciate the batrep but because of the rules-flops that were had(especially as much of the cheating seemed to benefit the side with the titan) I can't really hold this as conclusive at all.

The thing is, playing an Apoc game is much, much different from playing a regular game but with titans in there. In Apoc, you have a lot more resources to try to take out the titan. In a 2K game or less, your resources is much, much more limited. Last edition of the Apoc rules, it could still have been done, but in this edition, the new Destroyer rules are just too strong.

I can tell you that even if we played all the rules perfectly, the army with the titan will still have a massive advantage (though I will still insist that I will win. )

Screamer-star and seer council is annoying. I've played as or against them many times and sure, they are difficult to play against. But I have never seen an army pick apart my own with such ease. At least with those 2+ re-rollable units, you can still win or at least give them a good fight. With titans, it is just staggering how much more powerful they are in regular 40K than any other 40K shenanigans that I've come across. If not for Be'lakor and his shenanigans, the game wouldn't have even been close at all.

As for banning/changing the rules of units, that's entirely up to the TO and his customers.

And you're right. GW doesn't really care to make 40K competitive. However, they have gone a step beyond that. No, they have gone 10 steps beyond that. Now they have made the game extremely unbalanced as well. Balance is what makes the game competitive. Extreme unbalance is what makes the game broken (we may as well go play rock-paper-scissors instead). If TO's want any semblance of a playable game in their tournaments, don't count on GW to do anything about it. They're going to have to take steps to make the changes themselves.

In all honesty, GW really threw game balance out of the window after the DA codex release, look as how medicore CSM and DA are? they have a few good things here and there, but ultimately a majority of their codex's are not game breaking..

Then you see Tau and Eldar with Jets-seer's and markerlight/missileside/Riptide spam, look at daemon's? The screamerstar and Grimore giving 2++ everywhere, do you think that is healthy balance?

Fact is GW really never cared for game balance ever and Escalation is no different, all it is now is just another tool.

 jy2 wrote:

However, my concern is for the average, casual gamer. I voice my concerns from their perspective, but with a dose of my own knowledge and experience added in. That is why I feel strongly about this subject.

Don't worry about us casual's tbh, if we see any super-unit on the field, we will forget about the main mission and just focus on killing the big thing as long as we kill the big thing we will be happy

In all honesty, I would highly recommend you give Escalation another go, as many have pointed out that this game as it looks has not been as thought out, so I would recommend you have another go at it and read the Escalation rules as well as fielding legal forces, as it may change your opinion on Escalation tbh

 happygolucky wrote:

And you're right. GW doesn't really care to make 40K competitive. However, they have gone a step beyond that. No, they have gone 10 steps beyond that. Now they have made the game extremely unbalanced as well. Balance is what makes the game competitive. Extreme unbalance is what makes the game broken (we may as well go play rock-paper-scissors instead). If TO's want any semblance of a playable game in their tournaments, don't count on GW to do anything about it. They're going to have to take steps to make the changes themselves.

In all honesty, GW really threw game balance out of the window after the DA codex release, look as how medicore CSM and DA are? they have a few good things here and there, but ultimately a majority of their codex's are not game breaking..

Then you see Tau and Eldar with Jets-seer's and markerlight/missileside/Riptide spam, look at daemon's? The screamerstar and Grimore giving 2++ everywhere, do you think that is healthy balance?

Fact is GW really never cared for game balance and Escalation is no different, all it is now is just another tool.

 jy2 wrote:

However, my concern is for the average, casual gamer. I voice my concerns from their perspective, but with a dose of my own knowledge and experience added in. That is why I feel strongly about this subject.

Don't worry about us casual's tbh, if we see any super-unit on the field, we will forget about the main mission and just focus on killing the big thing as long as we kill the big thing we will be happy

In all honesty, I would highly recommend you give Escalation another go, as many have pointed out that this game as it looks has not been as thought out, so I would recommend you have another go at it and read the Escalation rules as well as fielding legal forces, as it may change your opinion on Escalation tbh

And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.

I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.

Ricter wrote:
Honestly, I at first was on the side of "Wow, that super-heavy is ridiculous." But after some thought, I'm no so sure.

Just last year, you guys did a battle report about AirCrons versus Space Wolves, which where the top dogs not 6 months previously. It was just as one-sided as this was.

And now what do we have? AirCrons are arguably not even in the top 3, and fliers in general have faded in dominance compared to FMCs and the larger amount of potent AA fire.

I'd like to see new TAC lists, built with the idea of Titans as possible opponents in mind, and see how those battle reports go before passing judgement at this point.

We all may be crying the sky is falling as a knee-jerk reaction.

To be fair, I am only against Destroyer weaponry in normal 40K. Playing against titans sans D-weapons isn't as bad. It's still a tough fight, but it is nowhere near as unbalancing. I'd have no problem with that.

But comparing CronAir to titans isn't really fair. Only 1 army has CronAir - necrons. On the other hand, multiple armies have titans and some armies have really nasty titans. Thus, titans are going to be much more prevalent and as a result, impact the game on a much larger scale, one that I guarantee most people will have never seen before.

 jy2 wrote:

And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.

Sounds like England if you lived up north

I can see your perspective, but would you be able to say that it would have given lower-tired armies a bit of a boost at least? I think it would highly most certainly

I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.

Awesome, I personally am not a fan of apoc (with one bad experience with a player put me off it) but would love to field my Stompa again, so this is kinda perfect for me

And I look forward to that Batrep

 jy2 wrote:

To be fair, I am only against Destroyer weaponry in normal 40K. Playing against titans sans D-weapons isn't as bad. It's still a tough fight, but it is nowhere near as unbalancing. I'd have no problem with that.

This. Warhounds with double Vulcan Mega-bolters would still hurt like hell, but it's 750 points of shooting that you at least get to save against if appliccable. Same with Plasma Blastguns, monstrously powerful but doesn't ignore saves. It's the utter annihilation of D-weapons that is the issue.

 happygolucky wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.

Sounds like England if you lived up north

I can see your perspective, but would you be able to say that it would have given lower-tired armies a bit of a boost at least? I think it would highly most certainly

I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.

Awesome, I personally am not a fan of apoc (with one bad experience with a player put me off it) but would love to field my Stompa again, so this is kinda perfect for me

And I look forward to that Batrep

It can definitely give the lower-tiered armies a boost, especially if your opponent doesn't bring a titan of his own. But if you bring orks with a stompa against eldar with a revenant titan, you're still going to get stomped hard. Orks with stompa becomes great. Eldar with a revenant becomes holy-ship- WTF-ridiculousness.

 jy2 wrote:

 happygolucky wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.

Sounds like England if you lived up north

I can see your perspective, but would you be able to say that it would have given lower-tired armies a bit of a boost at least? I think it would highly most certainly

I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.

Awesome, I personally am not a fan of apoc (with one bad experience with a player put me off it) but would love to field my Stompa again, so this is kinda perfect for me

And I look forward to that Batrep

It can definitely give the lower-tiered armies a boost, especially if your opponent doesn't bring a titan of his own. But if you bring orks with a stompa against eldar with a revenant titan, you're still going to get stomped hard. Orks with stompa becomes great. Eldar with a revenant becomes holy-ship- WTF-ridiculousness.

Depends, though. If you get first turn and your Stompa blasts everything into the enemy Titan chances are the Revenant will turn into a smoldering wreckage.

We just played another game with a Stompa and a Baneblade.

It was really fun!

Without D weapons it's not remotely as big of a deal. D Weapons (IMO) don't belong in anything but specialized games of 40K.

To me it seems that the problem here isn't so much superheavies and gargantuan creatures in regular games of 40K, but D-weapons. In Apocalypse, you can spend points to return destroyed units back to the game, units that can then unleash their D-weapons back at the enemy. So you can wipe out a superheavy or gargantuan creature with a D-weapon, then the enemy can spend a point to bring that unit back into the game, and back and forth all game. In regular games you don't have that option of bringing destroyed units back.

So the simple solution is to just say "no D-weapons" in regular games. Most superheavies and gargantuan creatures have a list of wargear options that aren't D-weapons but are still powerful. If a model doesn't have any non-Dwpn options, then it can't be used: those models are reserved for Apocalypse. That way people can still run their superheavies and gargantuan creatures and the game can still be somewhat "balanced."

 jy2 wrote:

The C'tan may be good against normal forces, but he really crumbles when facing Destroyer weapons. With only 6W, he dies just like a trygon or wraithknight to them. D-weapons have gotten so powerful in this edition as compared to last edition that they have basically rendered gargantuan creatures almost obsolete. Only An'ggrath, Aetaos and the Harridan - the flying GC's - have any chance of surviving and even their chances aren't very good due to the fact that they can be grounded just like any other FMC. And this is coming from someone (me) who owns all of those gargants - hierophant bio-titan, harridan, the hierodules, An'ggrath, Scabieathrax, Zarakynel and the Ascendant C'tan. If you reduce the C'tan to cowering behind buildings, then he is of no use in the game anyways and if you advance him in the face of enemy Destroyer weaponry, he will be toast.

Believe me, I was playing the game with the intention of winning and also with the belief that I could. I know exactly how to play against titans. Unfortunately things didn't go my way (I didn't get 1st turn, Be'Lakor didn't come in on T2, etc.) and my opponent just blew away my army so easily that it looked like we weren't really trying. But what you're feeling is probably what a lot of people will be feeling - unless you bring a titan yourself or tailor your army to fight titans, yeah, what's the point? You're just removing models without even rolling dice.

Look, I agree that Str D is stupid, but this just isn't true. On average, Str D does just over 3 wounds/HP of damage (EDIT:3.86 HP, 3.58 wounds). The C'tan in that regard is barely weaker than any Super Heavy. That's true for most GCs - in general, the amount of Str D needed to kill them is literally exactly the same as SH vehicles. The only exception is Eldar Titans due to the stupid holofields rule. The only reason GCs are worse is they have fewer Str D shots, trading that for a substantial gain against small arms fire and massive assault advantages. Let's not pretend that the Str D change has magically made a Hierophant less survivable than a Warhound - it hasn't, it's just now the Warhound's shooting is that much more devastating. That's the crux of the problem - mass Str D shooting beats everything. Before it was amazing, now it's just flat out broken. If you advance ANYTHING in the face of mass str D it dies, so everything has to hide from it. Is that really a waste? The C'tan hides until the mass haywire comes in to kill the Str D titans, then you win. Works in Apoc, should work in this. Having to wait 2/3 turns to be able to just wipe entire units is not what I'd call "no use". That's the only reason I'm against the C'tan and the Revenant being in Escalation - their Str D is way better than any other unit in the book and they have ways to negate their weaknesses fairly easily. How you came to the conclusion that GCs are almost obsolete is, frankly, beyond me because they're just as frail as any other super heavy - which is to say, not particularly frail unless they face a specific counter. That pretty much summarises the issue with Str D in small games to be honest - it's everything's counter.

i always look forward to your batreps but the 'sky's falling' reaction to these new toys is just a bit much. I'd like to think that the biggest problem is the shock at how fast models are removed from the board. The old 6th Ed. got us used to the ebb and flow of things being removed. Long gone are the days of surprise Vortex Grenades and the horror of having to just pick up your decked out commander without even a roll. The game's gotten soft IMO.

I think the masses have really taken to this 2++ reroll crap. To top it off, anything that would force them to shelve such awesomeness is not going to be accepted. I get it Dweopons are insane. They shoot, they hit, they kill. Very fast and effecient. What 6th ed was 2 days ago was a game where it was normal to be shot 100's of times without losing a single unit (maybe even a single model). The 6-up to hit flyers made those new toys more durable and well recieved. Now that the new kid on the block excells at something nothing else can compare to, we are seeing threads like this were people talk about banning or limiting such new toys. I'm honestly shocked. You guys play dozens apon hundereds of games and the first thing you do is come on here and say "uh, no."??? I looked to you guys to give me insight on 40k from a competitive standpoint. Now I'm hessitant to see revelence in your tournaments if GW 6th ed 40k approved items are going to be pick and chosen based on personal views towards them.

Again, I love both JY2's and Reece's videos/batreps. I also enjoy their insight into competitive 40k but I'm just dumbfounded that in this instance the immediate reaction is to dismiss this portion of 40k as an aberation or an exeption from the other rules. I'm of the mind that you ban one thing broken, you ban it all. I don't think you can go swinging the ban stick at Titans/D-weopons without admitting that Seercouncil/Screamerstar is just as bad but from the exact opposite perspective. I see Titans as the Unstopable Force and Screamerstars as the Immovable Object. Each have their flaws, you must admit but neither/either are really THAT much fun to play against.

Looks like the unstoppable force beats immovable object. Mystery solved !!

I would like to see a challenge against frankies DE against a revenant titan...

The Eldar Revenant Titan is an armor 12 walker with 9 hull points. It's like fielding 3 Chaos Helbrutes in cover and we all know how hard those are to kill. Yes it does a lot more damage, but that's what 900pts are for.

You don't need to pen armor 12, just glance it. How fast can a broadside unit with tank hunter strip 9 hull points off the thing? How fast can brightlance Warwalkers with Guide? Awful fast when every 6 on the damage table is stripping 2-4 hull points and not just one.

Looking at the Revenants void shield rules it actually leaves out glancing hits. By RAW the a Eldar Void Shield on the Revenant have no effect on a glancing hit. It says it only grants a 4+ save on penetrating hits.

Every army should be able to deal with an armor 12 vehicle. There is no great meta shift to deal with armor 12 vehicles with a 4+ save. You torrent them away and seeing how these super heavies are 3 victory points you don't even need to play to the mission as much as just down this thing and you win.

What I like about them is they are Deathstar killers. Very few people have bought them and it is to easy to have 1/3 of your army ready to take one out so I don't see a rush to buy more.

However the mere possibility of them on the table will cause current Deathstar players to rethink their lists. Maybe force some more models on the table. More units, more diversity of power. You can't do well against a super heavy if your list is 1-2 deathstars and min sized troops to score at the end. That's what I like about them right now.

I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.

Ok, here is my philosophy on the Escalation supplement.

For me personally, I actually love it! The competitive gamer in me looks forwards to the challenge of trying to kill some titans in a regular game. The Apoc player in me is thrilled to finally be able to use all my super-heavies/gargantuans (and yes, I have a lot of them). I will look forwards to using my titans against others with titans as well. Anywhere, anytime. As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to put up money to anyone who can beat my army and titan in a game of Escalation.

However, for tournament games, I disapprove of using Escalation for the time being. At the very minimum, I'd wait at least 6 months before even considering allowing them in tournament play, but realistically, I'd wait maybe a year or until another major tournament show that it is no big deal. There's no need to rush it. Trying to shoehorn Escalation into a tournament 2 months from now is too much, too soon. People need time to adjust - to get exposed to them and to grow their army to include super-heavies or at least counters for them. Allowing them in tournament play so early is a big mistake in my opinion. As a TO, you can potentially hurt the reputation of your tournament (and your bottom-line as well) if you try to introduce something before people are ready. It's one thing to allow dataslates and formations, which IMO are just minor changes. However, allowing titans, and especially those with Destroyer weaponry, is too big of a change in too small of a time frame. Sure some people - the competitive players or the players who scour the interwebz - may be ready to face them, but IMO the majority of the players won't. If I were to run a tournament at this moment, I would ban Escalation. For those who don't agree with this, then just don't go to those tournaments. That is your prerogative.

I'm also not against all titans, just mainly the ones with Destroyer weapons.

slaede wrote:
I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.

Void shield generators cost the same as a land speeder and have a 12" range. They can also overlap and prevent any d weapons from doing any damage until they go down. Those protect you if the Titan goes first. Also the Titan adds + 1 to the Sieze roll of your opponent so it's not always going first right Mr. Coteaz.

Boys, Jim and Reece, I still love you. I'm just in a spirited mood today. Don't take it personally. Hey I'm still buying some Mega Mats. Those things are awesome and I'm dieing to see the Alpine mat.

DarthDiggler wrote:

slaede wrote:
I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.

Void shield generators cost the same as a land speeder and have a 12" range. They can also overlap and prevent any d weapons from doing any damage until they go down. Those protect you if the Titan goes first. Also the Titan adds + 1 to the Sieze roll of your opponent so it's not always going first right Mr. Coteaz.

Boys, Jim and Reece, I still love you. I'm just in a spirited mood today. Don't take it personally. Hey I'm still buying some Mega Mats. Those things are awesome and I'm dieing to see the Alpine mat.

No worries. We are both students of the game and I know us veterans like to philosophize a lot about the game. My philosophy is normally very much like yours. Normally, I think that there is nothing broken in the game and that everything has a solution. But what both Reece and I are trying to say is this....D weapons in normal games is going to change the meta more than you would think and we are both concerned.

BTW, there is also a problem with the +1 Seize. Namely, if you don't go 1st, are your really going to deploy your heavy hitters on the table? Do you really want to take the chance of not seizing and then having your most awesome units blown sky high? My bet is that you will leave your heavy hitters in reserves (like I left my FMC's in reserves) so then what do you have on the table that can take on his titans?

I think this definitely needs more playtesting(I'd LOVE to see that batrep with the Stompa/Baneblade!). I can't wait to try it out, and I honestly think this might be a step in the right direction. Jim, you played to win and you pretty much did. The only way for Adam to win would've been VERY lucky shots with the chest-mounted pee-shooter on the Revanent.

Keep the batrep's coming, I think this rules change might surprise us...

On a sidenote, I can't believe all space marines get a fracking THUNDERHAWK...That's insanity. At least a Revanent is hit on normal BS can be hit in combat! Sure the thunderhawk only has one D, but it's a flyer that holds 30 models! that's pretty darn crazy.

Anywho, rant aside, I think further opinions might be best waiting until we have more than a single batrep to go by

With Necrons i could see following become popular,

Anrakyr
3 harbringers of the Storm
Belakor

5 Warriors/Immortals w/ Nightscythe
5 Warriors/Immortals w/ Nightscythe
5 Warriors/Immortals w/ Nightscythe
10 Chaos cultists

Helldrake

Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge

Big C'tan or Pylon, or the sphere, if 3*6 s7 Tesla would be good

enough to screw a titan over 3 times and still have a shot against a lot of armies...

to much points with the superheavy but you get the idea...

Wow, this thread really turned around.

 happygolucky wrote:
So it seems Michael Bay wants to be a Tabletop wargame designer..

Ok so one question, is Escalation a supplement or expansion?

Imo, Escalation could be quite healthy (awaiting my soap from Dakka) but only because to me it could boost army's currently really down the drain, such as Orks for example, adding a Stompa could really boost them up to a decent level as they can now combat the broken units that everyone complains about.

To me it will breathe life into my Orks after so long, get me more motivated to finish painting my Stompa and seeing awesome stuff happen

All I can say is, I hope this is a supplement so I can shout WAAAGH!! once again

This. Our Superheavy is a lot more modest than the Revenant (no D templates, only reliable D has a range of 2d6 unless it's changed in escalation), and frankly, I'd be happy to forfeit a few games to Revenants if that means I never have to see another screamer/seer star again.

The fact that the Stompa is essentially free for anyone willing to build it is another bonus too

Too bad that like everything else the Orks have, it's only "reasonable" and not "game breakingly superpowered"

Edit: When you think about it, D weapons are pretty much just the 6-spells of 40k. In Fantasy these spells do a good job of balancing enormous deathstar units there, and I think that frankly 40k is in need of a similar mechanic

 Dakkamite wrote:
Wow, this thread really turned around.

 happygolucky wrote:
So it seems Michael Bay wants to be a Tabletop wargame designer..

Ok so one question, is Escalation a supplement or expansion?

Imo, Escalation could be quite healthy (awaiting my soap from Dakka) but only because to me it could boost army's currently really down the drain, such as Orks for example, adding a Stompa could really boost them up to a decent level as they can now combat the broken units that everyone complains about.

To me it will breathe life into my Orks after so long, get me more motivated to finish painting my Stompa and seeing awesome stuff happen

All I can say is, I hope this is a supplement so I can shout WAAAGH!! once again

This. Our Superheavy is a lot more modest than the Revenant (no D templates, only reliable D has a range of 2d6 unless it's changed in escalation), and frankly, I'd be happy to forfeit a few games to Revenants if that means I never have to see another screamer/seer star again.

The fact that the Stompa is essentially free for anyone willing to build it is another bonus too

Too bad that like everything else the Orks have, it's only "reasonable" and not "game breakingly superpowered"

Edit: When you think about it, D weapons are pretty much just the 6-spells of 40k. In Fantasy these spells do a good job of balancing enormous deathstar units there, and I think that frankly 40k is in need of a similar mechanic

Actually that is a fair comparison but only if you compare it to old Teclis with almost guaranteed irresistible force. Because there is NO defense against D weapons. (even void shields are easy to pop with minimal AT)

I didn't mind the screamer star/ seer star units so much as good play could largely negate them and they usually could not deal out enough damage and were not scoring. My only real problem with D weapons is they completely invalidate builds with less than 12 non flying units. (aka a revenant titan can easily kill this many units in a 6 turn game if you cannot kill it). I have the armies to field MSU 16+ and swamp the opponent but is it supposed to be a good thing that to "fix" the 2++ rerollable a leman russ is an afterthought to destroy and TH/SS termies went from bad for points to worse than a scout even if they were the same pts? Because the scout can outflank, score, and has the same chance to survive against D weapons. I am not sure if people fully appreciate the power of 4 Large Blast D weapons a turn. It makes 4 riptides with automatic 3 markerlights on each unit a joke. It is incredibly compounded BTW when someone actually starts building lists to take advantage of these units. You will have to let me know how fair this is when a revenant titan has 4 void shields protecting it, a farseer guiding it, and possibly fortune and a 4++ invulnerable save. All while having a cheap screening unit to block melta or assault. Did I mention that it can annihilate 2 units a turn with relative ease? Jy2 was perhaps not playing an anti lord of war list but Adam was not playing an optimized lord of war list either. Ironically there is now 4 classes of list building that are important 1) lord of war, 2) Anti Air, and 3) lord of war support...4) scoring as an after thought. These units will dominate games to the point they are the only thing that matters. It can definitely be balanced but it simply does away with a huge chunk of the game and reduces the pool of army lists that can win a tournament even further.

I must say that revanent model in this game convinced me to buy one. It is gorgeous looking.

It seems to me that the problem is the Revenant with its superior mobility and firepower compared to the other Titans is the problem rather than the Titans and D weapons themselves.

I don't think people would have a problem with D weapons if you could only get one shot or maybe a 2 shot single weapon on a slow moving unit.

Its just the speed that allows it to easily gain LoS and prevent it getting bogged down in assault combined with 4 D str weapons.

A lot of misinformation out there.

Revenant Titan does not have a normal void shield. It have, effectively, a 4++ vs. Shooting if it moved and a 5++ vs. Shooting if it stayed still like on turn 1. The Void shield rules as written do not allow it a save vs. Glancing hits.

The void shields you can but are different. They do protect from any damage until they are glanced. It can be easy to drop an armor 12 shield, but not in today's meta. I mean it is easy to drop if you have a unit with one lascannons, maybe you'll need two of them, but today's meta don't have those units. Today's meta has units that fire 3000 str 7 shots. Yes you will drop a single shield with that volley, but then have very little to follow it up with.

Today's meta favors a concentration of firepower in a few core units. This is not good against void shields as all those extra shots are wasted. Dispersion of firepower throughout the list is better against void shields.

I can have 3 void shield generators protecting a Bastion or even a parking lot of heavy support choices. It will take minimum 3 and most likely 4-5 Riptides firming into that position to drop all the void shields. After that how much fire does an Ovesastar have left at range?

Most of today's lists concentrate their firepower in a few very hard to kill units and void shields really threaten that list archetype.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jy2 wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:

slaede wrote:
I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.

Void shield generators cost the same as a land speeder and have a 12" range. They can also overlap and prevent any d weapons from doing any damage until they go down. Those protect you if the Titan goes first. Also the Titan adds + 1 to the Sieze roll of your opponent so it's not always going first right Mr. Coteaz.

Boys, Jim and Reece, I still love you. I'm just in a spirited mood today. Don't take it personally. Hey I'm still buying some Mega Mats. Those things are awesome and I'm dieing to see the Alpine mat.

No worries. We are both students of the game and I know us veterans like to philosophize a lot about the game. My philosophy is normally very much like yours. Normally, I think that there is nothing broken in the game and that everything has a solution. But what both Reece and I are trying to say is this....D weapons in normal games is going to change the meta more than you would think and we are both concerned.

BTW, there is also a problem with the +1 Seize. Namely, if you don't go 1st, are your really going to deploy your heavy hitters on the table? Do you really want to take the chance of not seizing and then having your most awesome units blown sky high? My bet is that you will leave your heavy hitters in reserves (like I left my FMC's in reserves) so then what do you have on the table that can take on his titans?

So I get to Sieze on a 5+. Reroll if I have Coteaz. I get to Sieze on a 3+ if I have Necron or DE special character. Will top players take that gamble with the Revenant? I don't think so. I think only lower skill players will want to gamble. The threat of its presence is all it takes to shift the meta away from no interactive deathstars. That's what the community wants.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is what I think will happen. Escalation gets banned from almost all tourneys. GW releases Lords of War units in each subsequent codex. All hell breaks loose at that point.

DarthDiggler wrote:
A lot of misinformation out there.

Revenant Titan does not have a normal void shield. It have, effectively, a 4++ vs. Shooting if it moved and a 5++ vs. Shooting if it stayed still like on turn 1. The Void shield rules as written do not allow it a save vs. Glancing hits.

The void shields you can but are different. They do protect from any damage until they are glanced. It can be easy to drop an armor 12 shield, but not in today's meta. I mean it is easy to drop if you have a unit with one lascannons, maybe you'll need two of them, but today's meta don't have those units. Today's meta has units that fire 3000 str 7 shots. Yes you will drop a single shield with that volley, but then have very little to follow it up with.

Today's meta favors a concentration of firepower in a few core units. This is not good against void shields as all those extra shots are wasted. Dispersion of firepower throughout the list is better against void shields.

I can have 3 void shield generators protecting a Bastion or even a parking lot of heavy support choices. It will take minimum 3 and most likely 4-5 Riptides firming into that position to drop all the void shields. After that how much fire does an Ovesastar have left at range?

Most of today's lists concentrate their firepower in a few very hard to kill units and void shields really threaten that list archetype.

No, what it has is far more powerful - it's more like FNP(4+). It takes cover AND holo saves against most shooting. Many armies can also get through one void shield easily without wasting their good AT shooting, so the rest of this isn't really true. On top of that, nothing stops the Revenant also hiding in a void shield generator bubble. The thing about it only working VS penetrating hits is just flat out incorrect - you make the roll before armour penetration rolls happen at all. That means before you check whether it's a glance or a pen, you roll to see if it hits. No idea where that misconception has come from.

Plus, if you're facing a Titan, void shields make no difference. The other part of the army kills the shields, the titan kills everything else. I've never seen an army struggle to get down void shields in any game.

OK the arguments being put forth that the rest of the titans army will destroy you are ludicrous. At 900 points you are not going to be bubble wrapping, capturing objectives, downing void shields etc. etc.

If void shields ony cost that of a land speeder then gimme a break. That Phantom was just invalidated. I am with diggler here, letting Vect or imotek seize on a 3+ or any imperial army getting corteaz is really going to deter these things.

If you reserve it, that's 900 points in reserve! Sorry that never wins you games. OK hardly ever. Now your apparently 850 of bubble wrap/shield breakers needs to survive 2 turns unsupported?

At this point in time the game has almost no balance left. Heck I am remaking my beloved DE finally, replacing my 1998 models That book has almost no internal balance. It's a Kelly book, obviously a scourge with a shard carbine should pay the dame as a warrior to get a SC right? That's at a single book level, add the fact that the new books are even WORSE internally and externally and the fact that the allies matrix was never fair and the best armies have access to all the other top armies and yea.... There goes the game.

I say let it all in because there is no way to justify banning escalation or D weapons and not banning other similarly abusive combos. I for one would love a crack at a Revenant, I know exactly what and how to kill it now and I no even my awful pure DE can bring her down in a turn. That's a lot of wraith bone for the cause

The best thing I think TO's and players alike need to do is get some games under their belts with these rules and see how it plays out. Between Escalation and Stronghold Assault, there is a lot to digest. The Revenant Titan was just the obvious one based on its shooting.

And another posted did state one thing I also think will happen. You will see a Lord of War piece in a regular codex and then what will the community do?

Those books are a part of the game and just autobanning (tourneys and pick up games) based off of speculation rather than actually playing the game out is a bit disappointing to say the least.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Depends, though. If you get first turn and your Stompa blasts everything into the enemy Titan chances are the Revenant will turn into a smoldering wreckage.

True enough. Nothing is a sure thing. Still, I don't like their (orks) chances. Even if they go 1st, I don't believe they can take down a Revenant with their crappy shooting. It would require crazy luck to do so.

DarthDiggler wrote:
So I get to Sieze on a 5+. Reroll if I have Coteaz. I get to Sieze on a 3+ if I have Necron or DE special character. Will top players take that gamble with the Revenant? I don't think so. I think only lower skill players will want to gamble. The threat of its presence is all it takes to shift the meta away from no interactive deathstars. That's what the community wants.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is what I think will happen. Escalation gets banned from almost all tourneys. GW releases Lords of War units in each subsequent codex. All hell breaks loose at that point.

Good players won't even take the combo of Coteaz + Vect or Coteaz + Imotekh. You're relying on a "trick" to try to gain an advantage. That's not what I call good tactics for a balanced TAC army.

Not only does the presence of titans shift the meta away from deathstar builds, but now you've got a game with a very narrow scope. A lot of armies are going to be excluded from competitive play. Now, it's going to be the age of the titans, the titan-killers and the flyers. The thing I don't think is healthy for the tournament scene is that people are going to get bored from seeing titans on the top tables and also getting stomped on by titans. It's the battle of the have's and the have-nots, and I'm afraid the have-nots are going to say, "why even bother going to tournaments anymore when I have to face those things and I've got no chance."

 Lord_Mortis wrote:
To me it seems that the problem here isn't so much superheavies and gargantuan creatures in regular games of 40K, but D-weapons. In Apocalypse, you can spend points to return destroyed units back to the game, units that can then unleash their D-weapons back at the enemy. So you can wipe out a superheavy or gargantuan creature with a D-weapon, then the enemy can spend a point to bring that unit back into the game, and back and forth all game. In regular games you don't have that option of bringing destroyed units back.

So the simple solution is to just say "no D-weapons" in regular games. Most superheavies and gargantuan creatures have a list of wargear options that aren't D-weapons but are still powerful. If a model doesn't have any non-Dwpn options, then it can't be used: those models are reserved for Apocalypse. That way people can still run their superheavies and gargantuan creatures and the game can still be somewhat "balanced."

Yeah, basically, D-weapons are more of the problem. In casual games, between friends, I don't mind as long as both players consent and bring their own titans (or not). I just don't like the idea of 1 player blind-siding another player who isn't prepared to face a titan. That usually makes for a very unenjoyable game.

It's in tournament play where I would say no to D-weapons. Either ban it or nerf it. In time after most people have been exposed to titans, then that's when I don't mind allowing it in tournament play, but right now is just too early.

Eyjio wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

The C'tan may be good against normal forces, but he really crumbles when facing Destroyer weapons. With only 6W, he dies just like a trygon or wraithknight to them. D-weapons have gotten so powerful in this edition as compared to last edition that they have basically rendered gargantuan creatures almost obsolete. Only An'ggrath, Aetaos and the Harridan - the flying GC's - have any chance of surviving and even their chances aren't very good due to the fact that they can be grounded just like any other FMC. And this is coming from someone (me) who owns all of those gargants - hierophant bio-titan, harridan, the hierodules, An'ggrath, Scabieathrax, Zarakynel and the Ascendant C'tan. If you reduce the C'tan to cowering behind buildings, then he is of no use in the game anyways and if you advance him in the face of enemy Destroyer weaponry, he will be toast.

Believe me, I was playing the game with the intention of winning and also with the belief that I could. I know exactly how to play against titans. Unfortunately things didn't go my way (I didn't get 1st turn, Be'Lakor didn't come in on T2, etc.) and my opponent just blew away my army so easily that it looked like we weren't really trying. But what you're feeling is probably what a lot of people will be feeling - unless you bring a titan yourself or tailor your army to fight titans, yeah, what's the point? You're just removing models without even rolling dice.

Look, I agree that Str D is stupid, but this just isn't true. On average, Str D does just over 3 wounds/HP of damage (EDIT:3.86 HP, 3.58 wounds). The C'tan in that regard is barely weaker than any Super Heavy. That's true for most GCs - in general, the amount of Str D needed to kill them is literally exactly the same as SH vehicles. The only exception is Eldar Titans due to the stupid holofields rule. The only reason GCs are worse is they have fewer Str D shots, trading that for a substantial gain against small arms fire and massive assault advantages. Let's not pretend that the Str D change has magically made a Hierophant less survivable than a Warhound - it hasn't, it's just now the Warhound's shooting is that much more devastating. That's the crux of the problem - mass Str D shooting beats everything. Before it was amazing, now it's just flat out broken. If you advance ANYTHING in the face of mass str D it dies, so everything has to hide from it. Is that really a waste? The C'tan hides until the mass haywire comes in to kill the Str D titans, then you win. Works in Apoc, should work in this. Having to wait 2/3 turns to be able to just wipe entire units is not what I'd call "no use". That's the only reason I'm against the C'tan and the Revenant being in Escalation - their Str D is way better than any other unit in the book and they have ways to negate their weaknesses fairly easily. How you came to the conclusion that GCs are almost obsolete is, frankly, beyond me because they're just as frail as any other super heavy - which is to say, not particularly frail unless they face a specific counter. That pretty much summarises the issue with Str D in small games to be honest - it's everything's counter.

I'm comparing apples (titans) to apples (titans) here. If you want to compare apples to oranges (regular units), then of course titans will have the advantage. They are designed to be tough to kill by conventional means. They used to be designed to withstand even punishment from super weapons - the Destroyer weapons - but the times have changed. Destroyer weapons in 6E Apoc has far exceeded the power level of those in 5E. Right now, most Gargants can only take at most 2 D-hits on average and then they are dead. Yes, the Transcendent C'tan is very good. However, no gargants nowadays can compete with the power of the D. In the age of Escalation, the Revenant is king. The only titan that stands a chance is the Harridan but even he can be grounded by conventional means nowadays (he couldn't before). In tournament play assuming they allow Escalation units, the Revenant is going to dominate all but necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam. Any gargants you take is going to be rendered obsolete when going up against these types of Escalation armies. Yeah, they'll do great against any other army, even Escalation armies sans Destroyer weaponry, but they just can't hold a candle to the big D. You're just going to have to try to win it with the rest of the army and write off your gargant in the face of multiple destroyer shots.

Mass haywire from necrons? You do realize that you are exposing your troops, right? You can risk killing his titan, but now you can't take objectives because all your troops will be dead. And this is assuming your opponent doesn't put in skyfire and interceptor units to address what is a titan's weakness.

Currently there is only 1 gargant with any destroyer weapons - the Transcendent C'tan. The problem is, he is actually quite slow with an 18" movement and also quite short-ranged with only a 16" template. Yeah, he may kill a couple of things that the opponent leaves out in front, but most experienced titan players will leave their titans in the back due to their superior range. Honestly, I feel bad. I actually own almost all the gargants out there (tyranids, chaos, c'tan) and I know they have no chance in Apoc now, not when we have a Warlord, several reavers and several warhounds and shadowswords in our Apoc gaming group.

 jy2 wrote:

In the age of Escalation, the Revenant is king. The only titan that stands a chance is the Harridan but even he can be grounded by conventional means nowadays (he couldn't before). In tournament play assuming they allow Escalation units, the Revenant is going to dominate all but necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam. Any gargants you take is going to be rendered obsolete when going up against these types of Escalation armies. Yeah, they'll do great against any other army, even Escalation armies sans Destroyer weaponry, but they just can't hold a candle to the big D. You're just going to have to try to win it with the rest of the army and write off your gargant in the face of multiple destroyer shots.

I'd think that the thunderhawk is the king of escalation. Being immune to most Ds by value of flight, a transport capacity and packing a D gives it a greater degree of versatility and resiliency.